• (cs) in reply to nasch
    nasch:
    the case of Ellison v. Brady resulted in rejecting the reasonable person standard in favor of the "reasonable woman standard"

    And the search is on.

  • TimG (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    Anonymous:
    Killed a hooker, obviously
    ...and stuffed her into a mattress to be found on New Years Eve by two kids and a slightly effeminate porter.
    Good movie.
    Ewwww:
    When you have the buying power of a decent size organisation you'll only be paying a few pence per unit for mice and keyboards. Which is why I'm more than happy to just chuck dirty peripherals in the bin. Who cares if they still work perfectly, it's actually cheaper to bin them than to spend time cleaning them.
    I'm not sure what those weird "pence" things are, but it's not so much the cost of a one-time replacement as it is that the user is still using it and it would just get sticky again in another week.
  • laoreet (unregistered) in reply to chrismcb
    chrismcb:
    Back to the story, what is the WTF? What is the curious perversion of IT?
    The story didn't include any real What The F... moments because it was predictable (disgusting boss, offended woman, etc...). However, as has been pointed out already, a What The F... moment is not necessarily what WTF is in the story:
    boog (unregistered):
    A Worse Than Failure is a so-called "success" that is worse than if it had failed.
    So, lets look at the "success" in the story:
    Meet Rod:
    She’s currently hopping from contract to contract, living on a diet of mostly discount ramen, and has been unemployed 6 of the last 12 months, but one thing’s for sure – no matter how bad things may be, anything beats working for Rod.

    Hopping from contract to contract, having discount ramen as the only affordable food, and being unemployed 6 out of 12 months is considered a success for an IT worker? WTF???

  • (cs) in reply to Rob
    Rob:
    boog:
    Rob:
    Eh - I really don't see why the files arranged by likeness to employees is a big deal?
    Because it's really, really creepy.
    I've had to listen to co-workers talk about 'trying' for a baby.....it's no more or less inappropriate than a folder name.

    And a folder name is all she would have seen had she not intentionally poked around in what was clearly personal files.

    All of what you said there is completely valid.

    It's also completely irrelevant to what I said. Organizing porn on a work computer by likeness to your female employees is really creepy, and "enjoying" said porn in your place of work is really, really creepy, regardless of who knows about it.

    As for Katie poking around in Rod's personal files, the outcome of it all was going to be her resignation. The story gave no impression that she intended to "report" Rod. She was just going to quit for personal reasons (because she discovered something about her boss that creeped her out, even more than the guy already did). That's her choice and it's no loss for Rod.

    So what exactly is it that you're whining about?

  • Jim Reaper (unregistered) in reply to Ewwww
    Ewwww:
    Jim Reaper:
    Ewwww:
    When you have the buying power of a decent size organisation you'll only be paying a few pence per unit for mice and keyboards. Which is why I'm more than happy to just chuck dirty peripherals in the bin. Who cares if they still work perfectly, it's actually cheaper to bin them than to spend time cleaning them.

    Would that the cost of supplying you with new peripherals ended at the cost of the peripheral itself. Ultra-large organisations can go in the opposite direction to ridiculous amounts. Eg, the UK NHS. Price of a new mouse? £3. Total cost of getting a new mouse to a users desk, taking into account the paperwork involved in raising and approving the PO, getting someone organised to collect said mouse, then installing it? Circa £125.

    That may be true, but if we ran our company like the NHS we would have gone bankrupt years ago. Given the nature of the NHS (vast, publicly funded) it doesn't really feel like a fair comparison. But I do appreciate your point.

    Fair challenge. I have no doubt some larger corporations are at least in the same red-tape ballpark though.

  • caecus (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    chrismcb:
    You are right perhaps Katie did mind Rod's off color hardwood comment, but she was used to it.

    What a sickening attitude. I hope your HR department doesn't read that.

    And, since the investors "removed" Rod, it's quite clear that Rod isn't the whole owner of the enterprise.

    Uh, he's referring to the ... for lack of a better term ... "story", which states that Katie was used to it; not presenting his own opinion, you semi-literate fucktarded troll:

    Mark Bowytzed It Again:
    “OR is this some sort of HARD WOOD for those COUGAR women I've been hearing about lately? Get IT?!"

    Katie just rolled her eyes. She was used to this sort of thing,

  • Daniel (unregistered)

    I can't see why so many people are defending the guy.

    If you send your WORK computer to the techs to have it repaired, you no longer really have an expectation of privacy. It's a courtesy that they keep it for you, but ... not when it concerns the person looking.

    She SERIOUSLY had a lot of things going towards a sexual harassment case.

  • Butthead (unregistered)

    Meet Rod Uhhh.. uh huh huh huh...

  • Ah but (unregistered) in reply to Daniel
    Daniel:
    I can't see why so many people are defending the guy.

    If you send your WORK computer to the techs to have it repaired, you no longer really have an expectation of privacy. It's a courtesy that they keep it for you, but ... not when it concerns the person looking.

    She SERIOUSLY had a lot of things going towards a sexual harassment case.

    Why don't I have an expectation of privacy? I'm asking for repair work to be done, that's it. If your boiler needs servicing, is it then accepted that the plumber is entitled to rifle through your drawers and read all your private papers?

  • Jongles (unregistered)

    Quite Aptly named... 'Rod'

  • marc (unregistered) in reply to Ah but
    Ah but:
    Daniel:
    I can't see why so many people are defending the guy.

    If you send your WORK computer to the techs to have it repaired, you no longer really have an expectation of privacy. It's a courtesy that they keep it for you, but ... not when it concerns the person looking.

    She SERIOUSLY had a lot of things going towards a sexual harassment case.

    Why don't I have an expectation of privacy? I'm asking for repair work to be done, that's it. If your boiler needs servicing, is it then accepted that the plumber is entitled to rifle through your drawers and read all your private papers?

    Slightly different kettle of fish, isn't it?

    If you hire a plumber to unblock a drain, you accept that he will see whatever you've put down there. If you hire someone to fix your computer, you have to accept that they might find things you've got on your computer.

    Unlike your example (with a plumber rifling through your papers), the girl here didn't go snooping, but rather stumbled across the stuff in the course of her work. She was disgusted by it, and, realising it was pretty well her only option, chose to leave as a result.

    No problem here with either of them. I don't think a Sexual Harassment charge would go far, because saying that this pr0n is deliberately chosen as girls that look like her is merely speculation (of course, you would worry about it, but pretty hard to prove that 'he downloaded pictures of girls who vaguely resembled me' - even the directory names would be easily dismissed....
    It was silly of him not to think that such things would be found, but then again, pr0n in itself is not illegal in most parts of the world.

  • (cs) in reply to Ah but
    Ah but:
    Why don't I have an expectation of privacy? I'm asking for repair work to be done, that's it. If your boiler needs servicing, is it then accepted that the plumber is entitled to rifle through your drawers and read all your private papers?
    No, he shouldn't rifle through your drawers and read all your private papers. But if he should happen to stumble upon your copy of "Pipe Cleaners 2" cleverly hidden in an open cardboard box 2 feet to the left of the boiler with "plumbers xxx" written in big black marker on the side of it, you can be sure he'd take a quick peek.

    Seriously, if you really value your privacy, don't keep your private stuff where others will see it.

  • (cs)

    It's tough being a deaf person in IT. Katie WAS deaf, right? Why else would Rod gesticulate his "HUGE advancement opportunity" comment?

    Also, what is a vicious substance?

  • (cs) in reply to DaveK
    DaveK and others:
    /* long rant about grammar etc */

    Whenever I read text intended for human reading I parse it into meaning. That is to say, I interpret what was written, not how it was written. As such, I was able to read the entire article without going "GAH!" at the grammar, spelling or any other aspect not related to the actual concepts and meaning in the piece.

    I really think a lot of regulars on this site should refrain from use strict; and use warnings; when reading articles.

    Less stress helps you live longer.

  • (cs) in reply to Chewbacca
    Chewbacca:
    DaveK and others:
    /* long rant about grammar etc */

    Whenever I read text intended for human reading I parse it into meaning. That is to say, I interpret what was written, not how it was written. As such, I was able to read the entire article without going "GAH!" at the grammar, spelling or any other aspect not related to the actual concepts and meaning in the piece.

    I really think a lot of regulars on this site should refrain from use strict; and use warnings; when reading articles.

    Less stress helps you live longer.

    That's easy for you to say. You don't have Assburger's.

  • POUZZLER (unregistered) in reply to Chewbacca

    One person should make the effort to write perfectly grammatical sentences, rather than make potential hundreds, thousands, of readers use a non-standard parser. Even if it indeed only takes one second more to read a badly written piece, that's thousands of seconds, when read by thousands.

    As an aside, you just made a case for illegible code - let's just parse it until it makes sense.

    Best regards

  • JB (unregistered) in reply to anon

    Probably just a mistaken wording, but why is he the owner of Ace Software if the investors can fire him? Wouldn't that imply that he didn't have majority ownership?

  • anon (unregistered)

    anything beats working for Rod.

    or rather:

    anything working Rod beats for

  • wtf (unregistered) in reply to Ah but
    Ah but:

    Why don't I have an expectation of privacy? I'm asking for repair work to be done, that's it. If your boiler needs servicing, is it then accepted that the plumber is entitled to rifle through your drawers and read all your private papers?

    Assuming we're talking about a work computer, you don't have an expectation of privacy because you're using someone else's machine. It belongs to someone else, and they can look at it when they want.

    Is this really news to you?

  • luis.espinal (unregistered) in reply to C
    C:
    Pete:
    Nick:
    Resignation semesignation, how about a lawsuit. That should cover the 6 months of unemployment.

    ~Nick~

    Seriously, some HR lawyer would have a field day with this.

    Absolutely. Sounds like the subject of said story has no clue about the world. Taking that folder straight to HR and calling a lawyer immediately would be the appropriate course of action. Shame, missed out on a huge amount of money with the way sexual harassment cases go.

    Just because a person chooses not to pursue a legal action (and milk the cow$ with it), that does not mean or suggest that person is ignorant of the possibility.

    As shocking as it might be to some, some people (actually a lot) live (implicitly or explicitly) by certain standards that makes them take the high road in situations like that.

    Such an approach might be right, might be wrong, might be impractical, maybe even stupid. More often than not, it has nothing to do with ignorance of the law, and more to do with not giving a shit and a desire to remove themselves from shit as fast and as far away as possible.

  • (cs) in reply to Chewbacca
    Chewbacca:
    DaveK and others:
    /* long rant about grammar etc */

    Whenever I read text intended for human reading I parse it into meaning. That is to say, I interpret what was written, not how it was written.

    Well, whenever I read text intended for human reading, I like it to be well written. That is to say, I like it to flow, to sound nice, to have some degree of melodiousness and rhythm to it; the conveying of ideas is not entirely independent of the details of their expression. Yes, I am able to parse and interpret the article, but it is a less enjoyable experience if it is interrupted by the conceptual jolts that are caused when my parser stumbles over some awkward phrasing and has to backtrack.
    Chewbacca:
    As such, I was able to read the entire article without going "GAH!" at the grammar, spelling or any other aspect not related to the actual concepts and meaning in the piece.
    But this site is a (semi-?)professional enterprise, and it behooves the authors to try and produce a professional standard of writing (and indeed, I believe that is their intention).
    Chewbacca:
    I really think a lot of regulars on this site should refrain from use strict; and use warnings; when reading articles.
    It's meant to be at least constructive criticism, to explain what's awkward about the wording and suggest another way to do it. (And I think we've seen over the course of the MFD strip that Mark is capable of listening to criticism and using it to help improve what he does, for which he deserves respect.)
    Chewbacca:
    Less stress helps you live longer.
    I'm not stressed by it, I just enjoy the use of hyperbole and exaggeration to express myself!
  • oheso (unregistered) in reply to Erik
    Erik:
    So am I the only one who noticed the deplorable grammar in this post? The story itself had promise, although it relied a little too heavily on the cliche of the sleazy disgusting boss, but the grammar made it nigh unreadable in several places.

    Hey, how did you manage not to get deleted?

    It's not just deplorable grammar. The writing actually detracts from the story.

  • Dredge Slug (unregistered)

    The guy's name was Rod? Really? Ohhhhh....I get it now.

  • biff (unregistered) in reply to Anon

    not on your life, unless you are willing to be held responsible for what is in his porn files.... Some of that stuff is ILLEGAL... and the authorities don't care who they hang for it. Better to leave it right where it is.

  • CodeMacho (unregistered)

    I think in reality she were so ugly, cant date with anyone. So she put pornpictures of herself into cowokrers PC's. Long story short, she was fired

  • meh (unregistered) in reply to JB
    JB:
    Probably just a mistaken wording, but why is he the owner of Ace Software if the investors can fire him? Wouldn't that imply that he didn't have majority ownership?

    That all depends. Usually, investors make sure that they can pull out their money under certain circumstances. Of course, their money has usually already been spent, so an investor pulling out, even a minority stake, could cause a bankruptcy unless another investor is willing to step in. Investors can do that without even owning a single share, unsecured lending can give that position of power.

    Or maybe the shares were collateral for a loan and he defaulted. Also, it's possible for the owner to have a majority stake, but not the controlling interest. There are a lot of possibilities.

  • dave (unregistered) in reply to Some Tech Guy

    Hostile work environment just for having porn at work, not to mention using a company-owned computer to store personal documents.

    The real question is why Katie planned to resign instead of reporting her find to HR.

  • Arvid (unregistered) in reply to anon

    A few things should give you a quite clear hint on what might have happened. Everything that Katie pointed out being weird about Rod. I.e. the missing manager, what happened the day after when Rod not being dressed in the usual way he used to, the orange-brown substance. Anyway, this should give an idea of what Rod might have done especially after Katie found the porn-stash. Considering the close working relationship he had with Jennifer might one suspect he tried to act on his fantasies and well, them going all wrong or the way he intended.

    CAPTCHA: jumentum

  • Chris (unregistered)

    To that I say....GO COUGS.

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